Army Suicides Increase Fifth Year in a Row

Army Suicides to Top 2008

US army suicide rate on rise

A Million Children go to Bed Hungry in U.S.

Record numbers go hungry in the US
Government report shows 50m people unable to put food on the table at some point last year

More than a million children regularly go to bed hungry in the US, according to a government report that shows a startling increase in the number of families struggling to put food on the table.

President Barack Obama, who pledged to eradicate childhood hunger, has described as “unsettling” the agriculture department survey, which says 50 million people in the US – one in six of the population – were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy at some point last year, in large part because of escalating unemployment or poorly paid jobs. That is a rise of more than one-third on the year before and the highest number since the survey began in 1995.

The agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, said: “These numbers are a wake-up call … for us to get very serious about food security and hunger, about nutrition and food safety in this country.”

Vilsack said he expected the numbers to worsen when the survey for this year is released in 2010.

The report said 6.7 million people were defined as having “very low food security” because they regularly lacked sufficient to eat. Among them, 96% reported that the food they bought did not last until they had money to buy more. Nearly all said they could not afford to eat balanced meals. Although few reported that this was a permanent situation throughout the year, 88% said it had occurred in three or more months.

Nearly half reported losing weight because they did not have enough money to buy food. Full Story

Household Food Security in the United States, 2008

Buy Government Insurance or be Fined or Go to Jail

Pelosi Says Buy Health Insurance Or Go To Jail 2009

Rep Sessions protests fining and throwing Americans in jail over health care

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The End of America Happens in the Middle of the Night

While normal everyday oblivious Americans were preparing their beds to sleep Saturday night their elected officials quietly passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Indeed, the passage of this act deals one of the final death blows to the Constitution and with it our liberties.

As I ponder upon this momentously horrid occurrence it is as if I have just woken up from a nightmare and been thrown directly into the plot of George Orwell’s 1984, with no hope of escape. As this thought grabs hold I am lead to ponder more and more about America and I ask myself a few questions.

Since when did the Constitution provide for a health care guarantee? Since when did the Constitution grant the Congress the power to force Americans into a health care dystopia? What good is a Constitution if we choose to ignore it? What good is a Constitution if the Congress simply chooses to create a new one in their own graven socialist image?

Truly, these questions are meaningless now. The Constitution is hanging by the tiniest of threads. Who will save it? Who will come to its rescue?

It is the everyday middle class American that will suffer the consequences of this travesty. Indeed, while the economy is reeling and unemployment pushes depression-era levels the arrogant Congress has decided to pass the biggest expansion of government in the history of the United States. It will create a new tax that will primarily be felt by the middle class, the ones most likely affected by the current depression. This is because as Americans are forced to purchase health insurance, the wealthy will have no problem paying for escalating costs. Nor will the poor feel the burden as they will receive government health insurance subsidies. Yet, the forgotten man will be the middle class working American who now already struggling against the burden of economic ruin will be forced to pay fines or even face possible jail time for not complying with our government’s take over of his/her health care. As this tax sinks in, the middle class will be forced downward into the ranks of the working poor and therefore into the ranks of government rationed medical care. Inevitably, government healthcare will swallow the whole of the medical insurance world and there will be no escape. Full Article

TV Increases/Trivializes Violence Against Women

Violence against women, female teens, surges on TV

Incidents of violence against women on mainstream U.S. television has increased by 120 percent in the past five years, with the depiction of teen girls as victims rising by some 400 percent, the Parents Television Council said in a report on Wednesday.

The media watchdog said it was particularly disturbed by the use of violence against women in comedies and said it hoped TV networks and advertisers would stand up against the trend.

“I hope the industry will look at our data and be as shocked as I was,” PTC president Tim Winter told reporters.

The report suggested that violent acts against women and teen girls was increasing at rates that far exceed the two percent increase in overall violence that the study found existed on TV between 2004-2009.

The PTC compared prime-time programing on networks ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in February and May 2004 and the same months in 2009. It said every network except ABC showed a dramatic increase in stories that included beatings, violent threats, shooting, rape, stabbing and torture.

The PTC findings reflect a sharp rise in the number of crime series on TV, such as the popular CBS franchise “CSI” which is one of America’s most-watched drama series.

But the report singled out Fox, saying the network allowed violence against women to be trivialized through punch lines in its satirical animated comedies “Family Guy” and “American Dad.” It cited one May 2009 episode of “Family Guy” in which a character gets divorced under a fictional 18th century procedure — by shooting his wife dead.

The Parents Television Council, founded in 1995 to highlight children’s exposure to sex, violence and profanity on television, said it was concerned that U.S. television was contributing to an atmosphere in which violence directed at women was viewed as normal.

“The fact is that children are influenced by what they see on TV and that certainly includes media violence,” said Melissa Henson, the group’s public education director.

A second TV pressure group, TV Watch, accused the PTC of seeking to expand government control over TV output and said parents should have the final say on what their children watch.

“This so-called ’study’ is…an attempt to force all television contents to conform to their own beliefs. Parents have the tools to enforce the decisions about their children’s viewing,” Jim Dyke, executive director of TV Watch said in a statement.

‘The Notion that we are in Afghanistan to Make our Country Safer is Bullshit’

Rethink Afghanistan

Afghanistan + More Troops = Catastrophe

Here’s Why Obama Is “Gravely Concerned” About Pakistan

Rethink Afghanistan (Part 3): Cost of War

Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties

Rethink Afghanistan (Part 5): Women of Afghanistan

Rethink Afghanistan: (Part 6) Security

Soldiers Speak Out While Obama Escalates War on Afghanistan

Veterans to Congress: Rethink Afghanistan Now

Military Escalation: Obama okays $130 b for Afghanistan, Iraq wars

President Barack Obama Wednesday signed the fiscal 2010 National Defence Authorization Act during a ceremony at the White House.

Obama hailed the act, which contains $680.2 billion in military budget authority, as transformational legislation that targets wasteful defence spending.

The authorization act contains $130 billion to fund overseas contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and it also provides $6.7 billion for thousands of all-terrain, mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles now arriving in Afghanistan.

The president was accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, congressional leaders and other senior officials, including Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“There’s still more waste we need to cut; there’s still more fights that we need to win,” Obama said, noting he and Gates will continue to seek out unnecessary defence spending.

Obama said he has ended unnecessary no-bid defence contracts and signed bipartisan legislation to reform defence procurement practices so weapons systems’ costs do not spin out of control. “Even as we have made critical investments in equipment and weapons our troops do need, we’re eliminating tens of billions of dollars in waste we don’t need,” Obama said.
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“As commander in chief, I will always do whatever it takes to keep the American people safe to defend this nation,” Obama said. “That’s why this bill provides for the best military in the history of the world.”
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Money also is budgeted to fund programs that address “real and growing threats,” Obama said. Such systems, he said, include the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, the littoral combat ship, and more helicopters and reconnaissance support for deployed U.S. forces.

Obama praised Gates and Mullen for their hard work in developing the 2010 defence budget. “I want to thank, publicly, Bob Gates for his service to our nation,” he said, and he added that Mullen has “provided wise counsel and stood with us in our efforts to initiate reform.”

Obama Nation: Ray of Hope has Already Darkened for Many

State of Obama Nation: One year on from America’s choice

Rather than Mandate H1N1 Vaccine, Say There is a Shortage

H1N1 vaccine shortage

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And now listen to the spin from The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)…

Pandemic Influenza: Science, Economics, and Foreign Policy: Session One: The Science

COHEN: Well, it’s an interesting question, though. Would you be against mandating?

SIMONSEN: Well, I think this is very interesting because, I mean, especially for the health-care worker example. I mean, there are many, many good reasons why health care workers should be considering immunization for their own safety but also to protect and, first, do no harm to the patients that they are treating. Having said that, does it work to mandate?

I think what would work better would be to say that there was a shortage and people tend to buy more of something that’s in demand. (Laughter.) We saw that — there was one season where, really, people lined up all night to get a flu shot.

Transcript
Video

Some Citizens are Embracing the Age of Big Brother

Let’s get microchipped and party!

“We are in a process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy to get people actually to love their servitude.” – Aldous Huxley

Verimed Health Link, Human Implantable RFID Commercial

Obamas Tout Organic While Giving US Pesticide Lobbyist

Agriculture nomination steams greens

When the Obama administration announced that it was nominating a former pesticide lobbyist to be the chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, it sparked more than the usual Internet chatter.

“Obama’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator Nominee Is a Pesticide Pusher;” screamed one website. ‘Obama’s Ag Policy Is Giving Me Whiplash,” lamented another. “Obama Backtreads,” scolded a third.

The nomination of Islam Siddiqui, vice president for science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, struck an off-key note among environmentalists — and not just because they think pesticides and chemicals are unsafe for humans and detrimental to the environment. Perhaps more important was the sense of betrayal. After all, it was Michelle Obama herself who had demanded a pesticide-free garden for the first family at the White House, suggesting — environmentalists thought — that the Obama administration was sympathetic to their cause.

“We are seriously disheartened by this appointment,” said Katherine Ozer, executive director of the National Family Farm Coalition, which represents family farmers. “While we have been encouraged by the first lady and USDA’s promotion of sustainable agriculture and local food, Siddiqui’s role will undermine those goals both here and abroad by promoting our current broken, chemical-intensive, industrial-agriculture model.”

The Pesticide Action Network, which documents what it says are the hazardous impacts of pesticides on crop production, farm animals and humans, said Siddiqui’s nomination last month called into question “just how committed the Obama administration is to promoting sustainable agriculture and reducing hunger in the developing world.” Full Story

Petition to withdraw the nomination of Islam Siddiqui